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Monday, December 26, 2016

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings
was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and
originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of
Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings,
Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff
so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If
you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own
subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she
accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of
tea to a good dinner.”

10. Don’t just resist cynicism — fight it actively. Fight it in yourself, for this ungainly beast lays dormant in each of us, and counter it in those you love and engage with, by modeling its opposite. Cynicism often masquerades as nobler faculties and dispositions, but is categorically inferior. Unlike that great Rilkean life-expanding doubt, it is a contracting force. Unlike critical thinking, that pillar of reason and necessary counterpart to hope, it is inherently uncreative, unconstructive, and spiritually corrosive. Life, like the universe itself, tolerates no stasis — in the absence of growth, decay usurps the order. Like all forms of destruction, cynicism is infinitely easier and lazier than construction. There is nothing more difficult yet more gratifying in our society than living with sincerity and acting from a place of largehearted, constructive, rational faith in the human spirit, continually bending toward growth and betterment. This remains the most potent antidote to cynicism. Today, especially, it is an act of courage and resistance.

Try substituting "I" for "We" and think about what it might mean in your life.

San Francisco will remain a Sanctuary City. We will not turn our back on the men and women from other countries who help make this city great, and who represent over one-third of our population. This is the Golden Gate—we build bridges, not walls; (I will build bridges, not walls.)

We will never back down on women’s rights. We will ensure our young girls grow up with role models who show them they can be or do anything. (I will stand up for women's rights.)

For all the LGBTQ people all over the country who feel scared, bullied, or alone: You matter. You are seen; you are loved; and San Francisco will never stop fighting for you. (I will never stop fighting for you.)

We still believe in this nation’s founding principle of religious freedom. We do not ban people for their faith. And the only lists we keep are on invitations to come pray together. (I will stand up for religious freedom.)

Black Lives Matter in San Francisco. We will continue reforming our police department and rebuilding trust between police and communities of color so all citizens feel safe in their neighborhoods. (I will stand up for safety and freedom for all people.)

Climate change is not a hoax. In this city, surrounded by water on three sides, science matters. And we will continue our work on CleanPower, Zero Waste, and everything else we are doing to protect future generations. (I will work to protect future generations.)

We have been providing universal health care in this city for nearly a
decade. Regardless of future changes, San
Franciscans will be protected. (I will work for universal health care.)

We are the birthplace of the United Nations, a city made stronger by the
thousands of international visitors we welcome every day. We will
remain committed to internationalism and to our friends and allies
around the world. (I will work for peace ... world peace.)

San Francisco will remain a Transit First city and will continue building Muni and BART systems we can all rely upon. (I will support public transportation systems.)

California is the sixth largest economy in the world. The Bay Area is
the innovation capital of the country. We will not be bullied by threats
to revoke our federal funding, nor will we sacrifice our values or
members of our community for dollars. (I will support the common good over financial gain.)

We condemn all hate crimes and hate speech. We will fight discrimination and recklessness in all its forms. We are one City. And we will move forward together. (I will stand up and speak up against all forms of hate.)

Thursday, December 22, 2016

In this hazardous time, I've been trying to figure out what I can do ... what I'm willing to do and still maintain my personal balance and peace.

The answer came this morning in a DailyKOS post by skynelson who offers six habits that develop a culture of speaking up. Suddenly it struck me that that's what I can do. I can be observant and speak up when I see something that's not right, whether it's in our national politics, our local community or my own heart.

It's a good article that suggests that in creating a culture of speaking up, "we don’t have to fight against people. Instead, we connect with them as citizens instead of as opponents or cogs in the machine. We change the system by connecting with people, leading by example and speaking from the heart. We become more aware of our mutual interconnectedness and of our own personal leadership role in society."

Here are his six habits to creating a habit of speaking up:

1. Be Mindful

By cultivating mindfulness we are more likely to recognize opportunities to do good. (More)

2. Show Kindness

When speaking up, we may feel that we have to overcome someone else. Instead, we can use kindness to enroll the other person in our vision. (More)

3. See and acknowledge all sides

Seeing all sides allows us to understand how our cause may resonate for other people. We can then speak directly to their humanity, rather than trying to convince them to agree with us. (More)

4. Assume commonality

The outside labels that define us are not who we really are, rather they arise from conclusions we have drawn from past experiences. If we can see past a person’s learned reactions in order to see the shared human emotions underneath, we can create connection. That connection allows us to speak up more authentically, respectfully and effectively. (More)

5. Don’t be attached to a particular outcome

Speaking up is about you, and the culture of action that you create in your own habits. You don’t have control over the response you get. What is important is building the habit of speaking up, increasing mindfulness, and building a society that notices. (More)

6. Set the stage for synchronicity

When we do these things and step forward, something amazing happens: I suspect the cosmos is designed to respond constructively to our action. The universe is a canvas waiting for us to step forward with ideas and convictions so it can respond in supportive ways that guide us. We should make it a habit! (More)

Monday, December 19, 2016

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings
was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and
originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of
Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings,
Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff
so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If
you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own
subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she
accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of
tea to a good dinner.”

9. Don’t be afraid to be an idealist. There is much to be said for our responsibility as creators and consumers of that constant dynamic interaction we call culture — which side of the fault line between catering and creating are we to stand on? The commercial enterprise is conditioning us to believe that the road to success is paved with catering to existing demands — give the people cat GIFs, the narrative goes, because cat GIFs are what the people want. But E.B. White, one of our last great idealists, was eternally right when he asserted half a century ago that the role of the writer is “to lift people up, not lower them down” — a role each of us is called to with increasing urgency, whatever cog we may be in the machinery of society. Supply creates its own demand. Only by consistently supplying it can we hope to increase the demand for the substantive over the superficial — in our individual lives and in the collective dream called culture.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings
was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and
originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of
Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings,
Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff
so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If
you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own
subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she
accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of
tea to a good dinner.”

8. Seek out what magnifies your spirit. Patti Smith, in discussing William Blake and her creative influences, talks about writers and artists who magnified her spirit — it’s a beautiful phrase and a beautiful notion. Who are the people, ideas, and books that magnify your spirit? Find them, hold on to them, and visit them often. Use them not only as a remedy once spiritual malaise has already infected your vitality but as a vaccine administered while you are healthy to protect your radiance.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

In the Gratitude Miracles Journal, Cycle 7 is Gratitude Creates Wonder. Part of the wonder I feel after having completed that cycle … 28 weeks … 196 days … of writing my gratitudes is a sense of consistency, of being able to trust myself to do what I decided to do. Perhaps that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for me it is. My life’s journey is littered with broken promises to myself.Fortunately, most of those broken promises were discretionary, like the new year’s resolutions we make, almost expecting to break them. Gradually, as the pattern of broken promises became clear, I realized that one of the problems was not being sufficiently committed to the promise in the first place. Every commitment has a price: time, money, effort, discomfort, giving up something in order to achieve something bigger. Every change requires moving out of our comfort zone into discomfort. Making a promise without considering the discomfort factor paves the road to failure.Whim promises. When I promise myself that I will train for a marathon (something I’ve done a couple of dozen times over the years … and never completed), I imagine the satisfaction of completing the marathon, building strength, becoming fitter, without contemplating the hours, miles, aches and blisters along the way. I neglect the discomfort factor. I have no strategies in place for dealing with the realities of training. I quit.In the movie Glory Road, Coach Don Haskins, hall of fame basketball coach who broke the color barrier by starting five black players, said to one of his players, “If you quit now, you'll quit every day for the rest of your life!” Quitting becomes a pattern of behavior. Before making a commitment, I’m starting to consider the price and think about how I will handle the discomfort needed to keep the promise to myself.Perfection promises. Some promises beg to be broken. No more sugar. 10,000 steps a day. Meditate an hour a day. These “shoulds” often come clusters, and I find myself embracing them as if I were perfect, as if I should be perfect. I am letting go of these perfection promises in favor of intentions to avoid sugar, walk more, find a quiet time in every day. Writing in my gratitude journal every day takes five minutes and focuses me on the positives in my life. It reminds me to notice the miracles in my life. It’s a promise to myself that I can keep, and keeping this small promise to myself makes me feel confident in making bigger promises.I am currently on day 12 of a 30-day juice fast. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I first saw Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead a few years ago. My cholesterol tends to run moderately high and I want to know if a juice fast would lower it. I’ve tried to do 30 days before, but the furthest I got was 14 days. There is definitely discomfort involved in this promise. Not only hunger, which comes and goes, but the challenges of having a social life in this busiest of all holiday seasons. I spent a fair amount of time before I began this promise, asking myself if it was important enough to warrant the discomfort? How would I handle the worst hunger moments? (Interestingly enough, it comes exactly at 4:00 pm every day, but it turns out that a cup of hot V8 gets me through it.) How would I handle the temptations … the little voice that says, “this tiny little bit of cookie won’t matter?” (Oddly, those tiny white paper cups of free stuff at Costco … stuff that I would never want otherwise … are one of the most devilish of those little voices.) What would I do when someone wants to have a birthday dinner? (Delay … the 30-days will be over soon.) What would I do when I forget why I’m doing this in the first place? (Rewatch the movie, schedule the appointment to have my cholesterol checked, write about why I’m doing this in the first place.)Keeping my commitment to write my gratitudes every day is making me more confident in making bigger promises to myself. To help with this specific commitment to do a 30-day juice fast, I am going to comment to this post every day or so until I reach my objective. I’ll also report the results of my cholesterol check.

Monday, December 5, 2016

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings, Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of tea to a good dinner.”

7. “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.” This is borrowed from the wise and wonderful Debbie Millman, for it’s hard to better capture something so fundamental yet so impatiently overlooked in our culture of immediacy. The myth of the overnight success is just that — a myth — as well as a reminder that our present definition of success needs serious retuning. As I’ve reflected elsewhere, the flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst and yet, as a culture, we’re disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming. But that’s where all the real magic unfolds in the making of one’s character and destiny.

Monday, November 28, 2016

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings, Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of tea to a good dinner.”

6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living — for, as Annie Dillard memorably put it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Monday, November 21, 2016

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings, Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of tea to a good dinner.”

5. When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as important, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Last night, people gathered in Grass Valley to raise awareness and supplies for the water protectors at Standing Rock. It was a time to share stories, song, support, prayer and food.

I was drawn to the breath-taking Standing Rock poster (shown at left and described below) and had a delightful conversation with the artist and flute-player Mary-Ann Myers. There were also first-hand stories from people who recently returned from Standing Rock.

I had few expectations, but definitely did not expect a mental seismic event.The first tremor came when Lawrence Laughing, a tall, gentle man with a soft, resonant voice said that we were standing on our own Standing Rock, right here in these beautiful foothills.

He reminded us that the Maidu tribe had been decimated during the gold rush when almost 150,000 people were killed by gold and greed (according to Gold, Greed and Genocide by Pratap Chatterjee, now Executive Director at CorpWatch.)

With a mixture of delightful storytelling and a shocking reminder of our past, Johnny Moses, told us a mystical story about caribou and related a bit of his experience at an Indian residential school. For some reason I don't quite understand, the novel I've been working on this year has led me deeper and deeper into our dark past, especially as it relates to our dealings with the people who lived here when we arrived.

Perhaps the image that most brought home the horrors of the residential Indian schools was this picture of tiny handcuffs ... handcuffs for a child ... handcuffs made by someone, probably in large quantities ... handcuffs used by adults to control children. It's an artifact that carries a thousand stories, each of them horrific.Lawrence Laughing added to my mental tumult later when he talked about technology as something other than a sign of progress.

That thought connected with an ongoing conversation with another friend who had recently returned from Europe where time took on a different perspective when she toured a cathedral with a glass floor that revealed older structures. It struck her that the European mindset judged progress on structures … roads, cathedrals, waterworks, bridges and so on.

Therefore, when they (we) came to the Americas, all we saw was empty space, a void to be filled, a people without civilization, since civilization was judged by things made by man.I don’t know where this thinking is going, but my mind feels like a river that has been knocked out of its channel.

In the meantime, here is a beautiful piece of music by Lawrence Laughing

Friday, November 18, 2016

“The earth is a spirit, the water is a spirit, and if you have no spirit, and you have no connection to those things, it will be easy to destroy them and not even care.”

-- Quese IMC

(born Marcus Frejo Little Eagle)

Why is Standing Rock such a phenomena when other, similar actions didn’t catch the public attention?

Last night I talked to a woman in her 60s who drove 1500 miles to Standing Rock, who got arrested (with about 30 other people) for obstruction of a government activity, who spent time in a dog cage (a large chain link structure within the jail). She was one of several “returnees” who spoke at a meeting at the Unitarian-Universalist church in Grass Valley, CA.

Photo: Daniella Zalcman

Her story wasn't awful. She wasn’t shot, maced or pepper-sprayed. She was strip searched and held for almost fourteen hours, but she did not feel like she had been mistreated. She did wonder why she was arrested for obstructing a government activity when she was actually obstructing a corporate activity. Interesting question.

Her story and the story of the other returnees made me wonder why. Why they went. Why they were willing to be arrested. Why they spent their time, money and energy to stand up for this particular issue.

It could be the issue … water is life. The $3.7 BILLION pipeline crosses a river that impacts the lives of 17 million peopleand was declared potentially hazardous by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers when it was originally proposed near Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota.

It could be the people … Lakota tribespeople putting their lives on the line for their land and for our future rather than for money or power or fame.

It could be the time … perhaps people are waking up to the fact that we need to wake up, speak up, stand up... that waiting for "them" to fix "our" problems is magical thinking.

It could be the place … a place that calls to some sleeping part of us that remembers an earlier time, a simpler time, a time when we understood and respected the fundamentals of life... but also calls to the greed of developers and corporations who see it as a nowhere place, an empty-space-on-the-map place.

It could be the anger and fear … clearly highlighted by the recent election, anger and fear are major forces in the world right now.

It could also be the words:Standing Rock … Words that go beyond words into metaphors that carry the power to energize and engage.

Standing Rock. Standing up for what’s important. Standing firm for what we believe in. Standing tall, willing to take risks for the seven generations of the future. Standing out, resisting the forces of power and money and greed.

Standing Rock. Strong, still standing, visible, solid, earth, the planet we live on.

"Two of our country's biggest issues, racism and climate change, have collided on a North Dakota reservation. This week, I loaded up my station wagon with water and supplies and drove down for a look at a historic demonstration that could shape the national dialogue going forward."

"In 2014, the proposed route of DAPL went through Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, with roughly 61,000 residents, 92 percent of them white. After the Corps determined that the pipeline could contaminate drinking water, it was rerouted to pass by Standing Rock. “That’s environmental racism,” said Kandi Mossett, of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation in North Dakota and an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network."

"The Standing Rock lawsuit may hinge on the definition of sovereignty. The law required the Army Corps of Engineers to consult with the tribe before it permitted the pipeline, but it didn’t require that the tribe approve. So Standing Rock contends that its wishes were overruled.“When we need help, they say we are sovereign,” said Mossett. “But when it comes to development of our resources—oil, gas, coal, uranium, water—then they step in see how much money the state can get.”

"The United Nations appears to agree. On Wednesday, its Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues released a statement that the failure to consult with the Sioux on DAPL violated the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a resolution President Obama signed in 2010."

The Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program authorized nine dams—five on Indian land, displacing those who lived along the banks. Standing Rock lost 55,000 acres, while adjacent Cheyenne River Reservation lost 150,000 acres. According to historian Michael Lawson, author of Dammed Indians, “The Oahe Dam destroyed more Indian land than any other public works project in America.” Estes said his elders “died of heartache.”

Speaking of historic conflicts between tribal nations: "They (Native Americans at Standing Rock) rattled off these 19th-century events like they happened yesterday, and this gathering at Standing Rock was occasion for a new round of history making. The site was called Seven Councils Camp, indicating the first time all bands of Lakota had gathered in one place in more than a century.

"While I saw passion and anger and solemnity, the main thing I saw was joy. Travelers were reuniting with long-lost relatives. Parents brought small children, and an impromptu homeschool taught them to ride horses and make fry bread."

"The Yakima Nation in Washington chartered a tractor trailer filled with pallets of fresh fruit and bottled water. Small donations were also received: somebody mailed four packets of Lipton noodles. When I asked how long they planned to the stay, most said, 'Till the end.'”

"I met Nick Estes, a Lower Brule Sioux from South Dakota who remembered that when he was a child, his grandparents told stories about the wonderful Missouri River. “But after the 1940s, the stories stopped.” The Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program authorized nine dams—five on Indian land, displacing those who lived along the banks. Standing Rock lost 55,000 acres, while adjacent Cheyenne River Reservation lost 150,000 acres."

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

by a militarized police force acting on behalf of foreign oil companies."

-- Josh Fox, Oscar-nominated filmmaker

I've never been beaten, maced, pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed or locked up.

Maybe it's time.

I'm a writer living a simple life. However, the novel I'm working on has taken me into strange territory.

I "sorta" knew the story: the cowboys didn't all wear white hats, the government didn't always keep its promises, the only good Indian was not a dead Indian.

Researching the story has pulled me deeper and deeper into the shadow side of our history. The stories are gruesome: mass slaughter of people and animals, wanton poisoning of lands and waters and air, callous discrimination to the point of brutality against minorities. But, for every one of these stories, there was at least one story of courage, generosity, and compassion which made it easy to look at the bright side and think the other things would be fixed.

2016 may go down in history as the year we lost our innocence, or maybe, it's just the year I lost mine.

It has been coming for a long time as one-by-one, we lost trust and faith in our doctors, lawyers, ministers, journalists, business leaders, and police. Once, we believed our government was "of the people, by the people, for the people." Now, we know it's largely of the money, by the money, for the money."

Nevada County Water Protectors

Nowhere is it being played out more clearly than at Standing Rock, where a few thousand people are
trying to protect their sacred lands as well as the water for 17 million people. Today, a lot of people across the country gathered in solidarity with those water protectors at Standing Rock.

I was with the Sacramento group and it was a peaceful event of probably 2-300 people. There was a calm police presence and no counter-protestors. Here are a few photos from the day.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings, Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of tea to a good dinner.”

4. Build pockets of stillness into your life. Meditate. Go for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular. There is a creative purpose to daydreaming, even to boredom. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience float around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations. Without this essential stage of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken.

Most important, sleep. Besides being the greatest creative aphrodisiac, sleep also affects our every waking moment, dictates our social rhythm, and even mediates our negative moods. Be as religious and disciplined about your sleep as you are about your work. We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it really is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities. What could possibly be more important than your health and your sanity, from which all else springs?

Like 62 million Americans, I woke up on November 9th stunned, flooded with fear for our country, fear for our future, fear for the millions of young people and children who were unable to vote for their own futures.

I also woke up chastened that I did not understand the depth of fear, anger and frustration that ran so deep that good people were willing to vote for change regardless of the shape that carried it into the voting booth. Michael Moore says we weren’t paying attention and I have to agree and accept my share of this disaster.

Like most of us, I want to know what to do now. Like most of us, I feel like I’m barreling through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It would be so easy to get stuck in any of the first four.

Recently, I heard someone talking about the bubble those of us called “baby boomers" grew up in and mistakenly thought was “normal.” We called it the “American Dream” and thought it was a contract with the future: we would work hard and the world would give us education, a comfortable home, a life-time job with health care benefits, and two-point-three wonderful kids.

It was a seductive bubble that made us blind to the people and events outside the golden dream. It made us fiercely protective of the bubble. And, as the bubble began to shrink and there wasn’t enough room for everyone, fear grew.

Years ago, under different circumstances, but similar pressures, the poet Langston Hughes asked, “What happens to a dream deferred?” His haunting poem, Harlem, ends with:

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

November 9th, 2017, the world woke up to an explosion.

Things are different now. The pieces will never fit back together the way they were. As a matter of fact, they are still exploding. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reports receiving over 200 hate-based complaints in the three days after the election. Anti-black, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim incidents have spiked even more than after 9-11
reports an official from SPLC.

So, we come back to the question of what do we do? How do we continue the work to find peace in a world that seems hell-bent on exploding all semblance of peace.

Obviously, I have no big answer, but I have a small answer that will help me sleep at night. And, it comes from a program Pacifica Graduate Institute created called Pondering Peace in a World of Turmoil. In response to their call for submissions, I submitted a piece of art titled: Pieces of Peace that incorporated three levels of words.

One of the most basic of our needs - food - actually includes clean air, clean water and clean food.

There is a group of people standing up for those needs at a place called Standing Rock. They are standing up for all of us, trying to protect our water and our air as well as their sacred lands. Yet, they are being treated like criminals.

Tomorrow I will stand up for them as part of a nationwide demonstration of support. Thereafter, I will do the following:

-- I will strengthen my own peace values of gratitude, openness, hope, expression, courage. -- I will stand up with my words and deeds for the basic needs of all people: food, shelter, safety, knowledge, work.-- I will promote with my words and deeds all values that create a sustainable, peaceful society: equality, justice, compassion, forgiveness, generosity.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings
was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and
originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of
Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings,
Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff
so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If
you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own
subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she
accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of
tea to a good dinner.”

3. Be generous. Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words. It’s so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator. Always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and behind every cultural artifact being critiqued. To understand and be understood, those are among life’s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them.

Lynne Twist states, "Generosity and gratitude are linked. It's what I call the well of being that's infinite. And, when we're in touch with that, we're naturally generous. When we're naturally generous, we're naturally grateful because gratefulness is the experience of the great fullness of our lives.

Monday, October 31, 2016

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings, Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of tea to a good dinner.”

Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone. As Paul Graham observed, “prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.” Those extrinsic motivators are fine and can feel life-affirming in the moment, but they ultimately don’t make it thrilling to get up in the morning and gratifying to go to sleep at night — and, in fact, they can often distract and detract from the things that do offer those deeper rewards.

Monday, October 24, 2016

Over the past several years, Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings the inventory of a meaningful life, has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration. Brain Pickings was born as an “eccentric personal record” of Maria’s studies and originally sent to seven readers. Now, it is included in the Library of Congress’s archive of “materials of historical importance.”

In celebration of her tenth year of Brain Pickings, Maria offers us ten of her life-earned core beliefs. This is rich stuff so they will be offered one at a time over the next ten weeks. If you’re impatient or want more, go to Brain Pickings and get your own subscription. Incredibly, this feast is still free … although she accepts donations, suggesting a donation level ranging from “a cup of tea to a good dinner.”

1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind. Cultivate that capacity for “negative capability.” We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having an opinion, so we often form our “opinions” based on superficial impressions or the borrowed ideas of others, without investing the time and thought that cultivating true conviction necessitates. We then go around asserting these donned opinions and clinging to them as anchors to our own reality. It’s enormously disorienting to simply say, “I don’t know.” But it’s infinitely more rewarding to understand than to be right — even if that means changing your mind about a topic, an ideology, or, above all, yourself.

In today's political turbulence, changing your mind is attacked as a personal failure, as if we should be fixed ... and right ... in all of our thoughts and beliefs from age six on. What happened to thinking about all aspects of a question, gathering opinions, weighing the long-term ramifications, exploring the possible unintended consequences?

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Judy Spahn is a remarkable maker of fine quilts, all hand pieced and quilted. She lives on a large acreage in the lake country of Arkansas and finds peace and delight in her environment. I’m always enchanted by the significance she finds in the small elements of her surroundings. I'm honored to be her friend and delighted to share this writing from her.

Today, while returning from taking a few pine seedlings to my neighbor to plant, I stopped along a piece of land that will soon be mine, inherited from my mother, who only recently passed away. This fence row has been neglected for a long time and has grown up with cedars, sumac, Greenbriar and every other assortment of roadside abandonment.

I was only pondering how hard it would be to clean all this out when I noticed one tree in particular had huge, nasty thorn spikes. The locust, while admired in some instances, is NOT a tree that should be allowed to grow just anywhere. The thorns can injure animals and poke holes in tires. So, I decided that the moment was right to start my fence clearing, even if it was just this one tree.

I waded into the tall grass, knowing it contained ticks and chiggers, which I abhor, for I was determined. With only hand clippers and a small chain saw, I proceeded to dive into the task at hand, neatly stacking the limbs with single thorns, into a pile. Only after I had removed a covering of greenbriar was I able to reach the trunk of this tree where I noticed the thorns were multi-spiked and dark red in color. They were gorgeous and nasty looking, simultaneously.

I clipped them off, thinking I'll save these and also keep them from injuring me, inadvertently, as well.Then on to sawing the tree down and clearing out all the debris. Returning home and putting away my tools, I stashed my new thorns into the china cupboard, atop the robin’s eggs and nest that were inside my mother's antique bowl, and next to the deceased butterflies and the dried mushrooms I'm often finding and saving. All my treasures, both natural and man-made seem to be quite happy together in this glass fronted cupboard.

Only several days later, when I was taking photos, did I think to bring out my thorns so I could save their image. The bowl with the nest of eggs seemed, somehow, to work perfectly with the thorns, so that is how I photographed them. Even later, after looking at the resulting photo did the composition strike me as having a bigger meaning...a message almost....that was saying something to me.

I felt that somehow, the photo with the eggs and the thorns, cuddled into the nest, captured the way life is a two edged sword. Life is so amazingly full of blessings and new life, but also fraught with dark, pain, disappointment, illness....the dangers, the fears. But, as with these thorns, being so beautiful in their undisturbed state, there is still something that dark and sad events bring to our lives that make it important. I think we all know this, but it is not always acknowledged....or even felt until some tragedy happens and we have to work our way through it.

The thorns remind me of the pain of my mother's passing....sharp and acute. But, the beauty of the thorns was also there, reminding me that in life, there is balance of joy and beauty along with pain.

Here in this photo were these tangible objects that reflected my own turbulent emotions. Loss of someone I so dearly loved and my own new feelings of returning to the joys of life,....the "thorns" amongst the "eggs".....the difficult mingled with the joys.....all of this is LIFE.